Monday, October 16, 2006

In a somewhat startling turnaround, it appears the UWM-MU game is now off despite a generous offer from Marquette to play the Panthers five times beginning next year. It was only a few weeks ago that Bud Haidet, athletic director at UW-Milwaukee, suggested things were very close to having a deal done.

So what happened for UWM to now back out? Apparently greed. That's the only thing I can come up with or perhaps they never wanted a deal to begin with. Marquette offered $60,000 per game for the three "guarantee" games for a total of $180,000. Last year Marquette's highest payment was $55,000 to a visiting team which included covering costs for travel and hotel accommodations. UW-Milwaukee was offered $60,000 to cross the street (no travel, no hotel expenses to be incurred) and the ability to play Marquette five straight years. Suddenly $60,000 per year isn't enough for the Panthers?

Wasn't this the same school that said they would play Marquette anytime, anywhere, any place just a few seasons ago? The same school that bashed Marquette on the radio every chance they got by intimating MU was ducking their cross town "rival" (usually a rival has to win a game...Marquette is 34-0 against UW-Milwaukee all time). Marquette, apparently tired of the one sided media smear, decided to give the Panthers a bit of their own medicine. Tom Crean publicly offered UW-Milwaukee a contract...five games...$180,000 dollars, and a home game for UW-Milwaukee. A generous offer and one that fulfilled all of their crying demands the last few seasons. Apparently not enough. Now, the bravado of the Panthers sounds more like the quiet whimpering of a pussy cat....a small pussy cat wearing a yellow thong. What happened to anytime, any place? What happened to Marquette is ducking us? Meow. Meow.

"Maybe at the end of the day they never really wanted the game or wanted the series," Crean said. "Maybe it was always about the money. And I haven't seen anything that would lead me to believe differently, based on the fact that they've turned down what I think was a substantial amount of money to literally come across the street to play a game."

Well UWM, it is fair to say that Marquette fans are through with you. We gave you a generous offer and you turned it down. We went out of our way to offer you not one game, but five games. We didn't have to give you any of these opportunities. You don't see UCLA offering this type of package to cross town school Loyola Marymount. You don't see Georgetown offering this to George Washington or George Mason. You don't see Cal offering this kind of deal to San Francisco or Indiana offering this to IUPUI. Anything out of your mouths moving forward about Marquette not playing UWM is pure hypocrisy at this point. We are done with you.

34-0 looks like it will stay stagnant for years to come. Fine by us. Let the season begin, we have much bigger fish to fry then an athletic department's meowing.

7 comments:

Incredibly, Bud Haidet walks away from the MU deal because of the "value of our program." Value?

Wisconsin taxpayers must be thrilled to know that Haidet has a money tree somewhere that'll generate $180,000 and countless soft dollar benefits from positive national exposure. I for one can't wait to see who Bud puts on their schedule in place of an upper tier Big East institution with a national pedigree in college basketball.

Where is Bud going to come up with a $60K gross average over five years for an out of conference game.

They are ignoring the market realities (the deal is much more than fair) and are trying to use peer pressure to raise their program.

UWM is desperate to be a big time program but is unwilling to fight to get there the way MU resurected there program following the harsh late 80's early 90's (from suffering independent to contender in top conference).

Playing MU is a no-lose proposition for UWM and at a great price. If they can not see this, then MU should not bend to public pressure.

Great article. Love the thongs. I don't know any MU student/alumni who cared about playing them. I doubt it would have even sold out. We barely drew 12,000 before when we played them. UW-M-A-HYPOCRITE.